HERE AND THERE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 86

HERE AND THERE.

—Anglo-American Relations.— Some talks with Mr Roosevelt which Mr Sydney Brooks contributes to the August Fortnightly Review are concerned mainly with the present condition of American parties, but among them occur some interesting references to Anglo-American relations. It has long been known that the Irish-American vote has kept a large number of American statesmen from expressing too freely their friendship for Great Britain. Mr Roosevelt, Avho is on the whole an admirer and well-wisher of the British Empire, holds that there cannot be a full and fair friendship between Great Britain and the United States so long as the Irish question remains unsettled. As he reads the signs of the political sky .there is no urgent necessity for England and America to conclude any formal compact, for he does not anticipate an attack on either country. The much-discussed Anglo-German clash does not appear inevitable to him, mainly because, as he reads history, the Germans are not in the habit of going into conflicts with the odds against them. In Mr Roosevelt's judgment peace is more probable than war so long as Great Britain can concentrate her sea-power in the North Sea and in European waters. Nor does he think there is any real likelihood of a struggle between his own country and Japan. What he would regard as a serious menace to the peace of the world is a German-Japanese alliance. According to Mr Brooks, the ex-President stated that his belief that such a development would make all Americans realise as he himself realised, "that the United States has no greater external interest, political, strategical, and commercial, than that the British Empire and the British navy should remain as they are today."

—A Convict's Marriage.—

The Town Hall of the Fourteenth Arroidissement of Paris (says the correspondent or the Daily Telegraph) has been the scene of a curious marriage. A convict, provisionally sentenced to eight years' hard labour, who may receive several years more at the end of another trial in October, was there duly and legally married to a young woman named Blanche, a distant cousin. The convict, whose name is Cortier, has been found guilty of burglary and various other offences. Next October he is to be tried for another burglary outside Paris. His cousin Blanche was at the trial. She admitted that she was m love with him, and. engaged to him. Whatever would be the sentenoe, she would be true to him. She would marry him even if he wore lie convict's stripes. Cortier was affected by her fidelity, forgetting his past, and thinking only of his future. He sent word to Blanche that he was "willing" as soon as she could arrange it. The prison authorities were applied to, and gave their consent. Two Municipal Guards fetched the convict at the prison. They were to see that he should not miss his way, and, at the same time, to act as witnesses. Cortier was led up the stairs to the wedding hall of the Mairie. An attendant in a bright uniform soon appeared, followed by the assistant mayor. The bride next appeared, with her two witnesses. Blanche wore a white wedding dress and orangeblossoms. Her <two. witnesses sat down. She walked over and stood beside her fiance, holding his hand for a long time — the only hand that was free; for the other was tightly held by the Municipal Guard, The papers were then spread out, and found correct. There was a determined, almost a proud, "Yes" from each. They pressed one another's hand again very warmly, spoke a few words, signed the marriage register, and then separated, the one to work and expiate and the other to wait faithfully for eight years at least. —lron That Does Not Rust.—

On the plains of Delhi in India there stands a massive iron pilar, nearly 60ft in length and weighing about 19 tons. This ancient column is literally a monument to the "antiquated" processes and metallurgists that produced, it, for it has resisted the attack of the elements during a period of about 2900 years, in which fully a million times its bulk of, iron or steel has crumbed into useless dust. No one would suggest that civilised man return to the primitive and laborious "methods by which the iron of this column was made so long ago, and besides there are not men enough living to-day to supply our present demands, even if all of them should engage in this type of manufacture. But, (granting that the world would pay for a limited amount of iron as "passive" as this old Kutub pillar, it is very doubtful whether modern ironworkers know how to make it. Probably this specimen of unusual iron 'S the result of accident rather than design, as far as its resisting qualities are concerned, and it stands to-day the survival of the fittest, not so much because it was intended to be, as because it proved to be, the most lasting. For if is not" likely that a process known to give iron of this kind would ever have been used so seldom, since the importance of a rust-resisting iron and steel was as much aj:>preciated in those days as now. No doubt all the older processes made iron and steel which rusted less —yes, and some of it very much less—than what is usually produced today, but there is a great difference between this mere excellence end a resistance to corrosion durinig 30 centuries, such

as thJB column shows. —Bra:dt.ey Stotciiton, in the Engineering Magazine. —Tropical Region in the Arctics. — Superintendent A. E. Snyder, commanding the Royal North-west Mounted Police at Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, reported to. the commissioner in 1909 that from north of the Porcupine district of Northern Ontario there had come repeated rumours of the existence of a wonderful "tropical" region which was still inhabited—by mastodons, says the Success magazine. "The Indians," concludes Superintendent Snyder, "report having seen the gigantic tracks of these animals." But little attention was paid to these stories, until in November of last year Mr J. C. M'intyro and- two companions reported a most amazing discovery north of Porcupine. They were travelling by dog-sledge, with the thermometer at 40 below, when to their astonishment the temperature began to rise so fast that within a space of two hours they had thrown off their warm garments, and the snow was soft underfoot. "It seemed," said Mr MTntyre, "as though we were suddenly passing from winter into spring." * Soon after they came upon the first of numberless hot springs, the snow disappeared entirely, and dense vegetation took the place of the stunted bush and timber of the plains. Because of necessarily slow travel on foot the explorers were not able to determine the extent of this wonderful oasis in the far northern wilderness. They found several good-sized rivers flowing with warm water and teeming with fish, and the country was alive with bear, caribou, ducks, pheasants, wild geese, and other game, and gold was found in a number of creeks. —The Kremlin Cross.

In collecting mementoes of the Napoleonic invasion for the centenary celebrations in Moscow next year, attention (says the St. Petersburg correspondent of The Times) was drawn to the memoirs of the Comte de Segur and other French, contemporaries regarding the fa'te of the great Cross of Ivan Veliky, the church which dominates the Kremlin. Napoleon had this cross pulled down, believing it to be of spl'd gold, and intending to have it placed over the Dome des Tnvalidee. He was prompted to this act by a desire to punish the .Russians for setting fire to the city, especially as the cross was popularly believed to. have a legendary connection with the greatness of KUssiay With enormous difficulty the cross, measur- - ing 16ft, was brought down, and, according to Segur, had to be abandoned on the march to Smolensk, being sunk w'th a quantity of other impedimenta in Lake Semlevo. The lake having been recentlydrained, a careful search was made, which brought to light innumerable remains of dead horses, harness, carts, uniforms, etc., but no trace of the cross. Letters published in the Novoe Vreonya argue that it never left Moscow, and was probably buried under the wreckage of the Kremlin caused by the blowing up of its buildings at Napoleon's command. The real gold cross remained undetected on one of the churches which escaped destruction. —The of Bathing.—

"Do you remember how the modesty of one of Ouida's heroines was called in question because she paddled with bare feet?" asks Mr Stephen Keynolds, in the Westminster Gazette. "We are -becoming emancipated from the smelly old bathingmachines, arid 7 even from stuffy tents. More and more Are bathe in the open. Less ano. less do we think our own bodies indecent; arms and legs have become perfectly respectable, and no one objects except a few evil-seeking prudes, and those who have a money interest in making bathers pay for their false shame. The bathing-machine proprietors are wondering what wickedness the world is coming to, but by the majority of people a greater freedom is more than upheld; it is taken for granted—the only sure sign of a genuine change in public opinion. Perhaps, in time, we shall all bathe naked without shame, as the Greek athletes played their Olympic Games. At all events, one almost hopes that through a frank acoeptance of our physical selves, instead of a useless denial, the age of innocence may come again. Not otherwise is it likely to come. Doctors and artists have already led the way." —ln Twenty Years.—

The German Lokalanzeiger says : —"Of course, Germany is strong enough to be able to cut the knot with the sword, even now, if she so desires. But what is the good? Even without war Germany will pursue her upward path, and in 20 years will stand with fewer limitations than ever before as the arbiter, of the Old World. Just reckon it out! In 20 years Germany's prosperity will have doubled and her population will have risen to 90 millions. Where is France then? And where England, with her hundreds of problems, every one of which contains in it the germs of annihilation?"